Ride the Nightmare

“How—how do I—?” Chris began.

“How do ya know I won’t kill ‘em anyway?” Steve broke in. “You don’t know. But if ya don’t get me that doctor, you’re all dead right now. Understand?”

Steve suddenly closed his eyes and there was clicking sound in his throat. Adam tensed and seemed to lean forward. Then Steve’s eyes opened again, his body twitching as if he were starting out of a doze.

“Go on,” he told Chris.

Helen braced herself. “Let him take my girl.” she said. Steve looked at her as if he were drugged.

“Sure, why not?” said Adam, “Let ‘em all go. We’ll just sit here and wait for the cops to—”

“He goes alone,” said Steve, stumbling back toward the chair.

“Isn’t it enough I stay?” Helen asked, “Please. I’ll be—”

“He goes alone.” Steve waved Adam back and sank down on the chair with a groan. He rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth and looked at Chris who was still standing in the same place, looking at his wife and child.

“Get out o’ here,” he said, “You have 45 minutes.”

Chris’s face tightened. Then, slowly, he moved over to Helen and Connie and put his arms around them.

“I’ll come back,” he murmured.

Helen shook her head. “They won’t let us go,” she said, “Not now.”

His fingers tightened convulsively on her arm. “Please don’t give up,” he begged, “For Connie’s sake—”

“You’d better go,” she interrupted.

Chris swallowed and looked at her helplessly. Then he leaned over and kissed Connie’s forehead.

“I’ll be back for you,” he whispered to her, “Don’t be afraid, baby. Daddy will come for you. Do what Mommy says and—”

“Get out!” raged Steve.

“Please let him take her!” Helen begged.

“I said get out!”

Chris turned hurriedly and headed for the door.

“Steve, for Christ’s sake, don’t do it!“ said Adam. “We can stop at a doctor’s place but if you let him go we’ll never get out of here!”

Steve looked at him unsteadily. “I’m not goin’ anywhere like this,” he said.

“He’s the one that shot you! Are you going to—?”

“Shut up!”

“I’ll get you a doctor then!”

Steve laughed breathlessly. “Sure, I’ll let you leave me here,” he said.

”Damn it!”’ Adam clenched his teeth and started forward, then stopped as Steve pointed the gun at his chest.

“You’re putting us right in the gas chamber,” he said.

“He’ll be back,” said Steve. He looked at Helen and Connie and his grip tightened slowly on the pistol.

“He’ll be back,” he said again.

Chapter Twelve

Chris stopped walking and looked back at the cabin, a wave of premonition passing over him. Suddenly, there seemed no escape, no answer. Go back, he thought; stay with them. Nothing he did could change the situation now except that one more human being might die if he brought a doctor.

He shuddered violently. And it was his doing. Because of him. Connie was in there facing death, because of him Helen was in there. And he was free. The irony was perfect. He drove nails into his palms until the pain made him wince. His doing.

He looked around desperately, somewhere, deep in his mind, a wild idea gathering. He saw himself brandishing a heavy stick charging into the cabin, swinging wildly, getting Steve before he could fire his revolver, getting Adam. Before the thought had reached even the periphery of decision, he had discarded it bitterly. Anything like that would only destroy his wife and child that much sooner. There was only one thing he could do. What he’d been told.

Forty-five minutes.

Chris whirled and started running toward the car. How much time had elapsed? Five minutes, six? How could he possibly get to a doctor and bring him back in a little over half an hour? Again, he stopped and looked back, his head throbbing painfully. Could he call back, plead for more time? No, Steve would never give it to him. He should be in the car now, speeding off. Chris turned and sprinted around the curve, every jolting stride like a spiked club against his brain.

He jerked open the door of the Ford and slid in, pulled the door shut again. Hastily, he slid the key into its socket and twisted it. The motor coughed, failed. Chris turned the key again, jerking out the choke, then shoving it in as the engine turned over. He pumped at the gas pedal until the engine sound flared. Quickly, he knocked the shift into Drive and the car jolted forward.

He glanced up into the rear-view mirror. He couldn’t see the shack; it was beyond that clump of trees. He felt an uncontrollable tensing in his stomach and chest—as if invisible elastic cords were binding him to his wife and child and, as he drove, the cords were growing more and more taut until they threatened to tear his insides loose, leaving the better part of him behind. It seemed impossible to drive away like this knowing where they were—to leave them alone with men who would kill without hesitation. Yet there was nothing else to do—or, if there were, his tortured mind could not discover it. Rescue was beyond his means; he knew that. He was just a fallible man. Only blinding fury had enabled him to fight successfully with Adam before. There was no such life-giving strength in the fear that gripped him now.

He turned the car onto the canyon road and accelerated as much as he could. Thirty-five miles an hour was the limit because of the sharply narrow curves. Chris glanced at the dashboard clock. It was twenty after twelve. How much time was left?

His mind raced ahead. There was no chance at all of getting to their own doctor in Santa Monica. He’d have to stop at the first one he came to. That would be in Malibu; far enough as it was. Chris pressed down instinctively on the gas pedal and the Ford tilted squeakingly around a curve. To his left was only space, far below, a rock- strewn valley. Chris tried to go faster but it was not possible. On the next curve the wheels of the car left the concrete and skidded onto the shoulder, casting up gouts of sandy earth.

Nine minutes later he was braking at the canyon entrance, waiting for a truck to pass on the highway, then shooting across to the southbound lane and turning in. He drove the pedal to the floor and the Ford started gaining speed, the dashboard needle quivering past forty, fifty, sixty. Wind hissed and whistled past the windows as he drove. If I’m stopped, he thought, it’s over.

You don’t have a wife and kid, Steve’s words echoed in his mind. You have a couple o’ corpses.

Chris looked up at the mirror automatically—and suddenly tightened.

Behind, in the distance, a motorcyclist was following him. Chris pressed his lips together and eased his foot from the pedal. If it was a state patrolman, there was no chance of slowing down enough to fool him.

Chris couldn’t take his eyes from the mirror as the figure came closer and closer. He felt his heartbeat like a piston at his chest wall. The figure on motorcycle was dressed in black, he stayed in the same lane, coming closer. Chris felt a heavy sinking in his stomach. I’ll have to tell him, he thought. The officer would call in, the police would come, they’d surround the cabin and Connie and Helen would be shot to death. A vision of the entire sequence flashed across Chris’s mind. He sat frozenly, waiting for it to begin.

Abruptly, the motorcyclist roared out into the outside lane and put on speed. In another few seconds, he was pulling by the Ford and Chris could see the expression on his face. He was a teen-ager wearing a black jacket and a black, goggled helmet.

With an indrawn hiss, Chris jammed down the pedal and the Ford surged forward again. Lost: one precious minute.